Environment & Energy

Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin

(108,304 posts) Tue May 19, 2020, 08:54 PM May 2020

EPA staff warned that mileage rollbacks had flaws. Trump officials ignored them.

In its rush to roll back the most significant climate policy enacted by President Barack Obama — mileage standards designed to reduce pollution from cars — the Trump administration ignored warnings that its new rule has serious flaws, according to documents shared with The Washington Post.

The behind-the-scenes skirmish in late March between career employees and Trump appointees at the Environmental Protection Agency highlights the extent to which Trump officials are racing to reverse environmental policies by the end of the president’s first term.

Even as the coronavirus outbreak has hampered many government operations, the administration is pressing ahead with the rollback of a bedrock environmental law governing federal permits and working to open more public lands to oil and gas drilling. In recent weeks, the EPA has opted not to set stricter national air quality standards, and it is poised to defy a court order requiring that it limit a chemical found in drinking water that has been linked to neurological damage in babies. The agency soon plans to finalize a change to the Clean Water Act that would restrict the ability of states, tribes and the public to block federal approval for pipelines and some other energy-related projects.

The documents — obtained by Sen. Thomas R. Carper (Del.), the top Democrat on the Environment and Public Works Committee — include an exchange between two agencies that has not been entered into the public record as required under the Clean Air Act.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/epa-staff-warned-that-mileage-rollbacks-had-flaws-trump-officials-ignored-them/2020/05/19/242056ba-960f-11ea-91d7-cf4423d47683_story.html

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EPA staff warned that mileage rollbacks had flaws. Trump officials ignored them. (Original Post) Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin May 2020 OP

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mahatmakanejeeves

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Wed May 20, 2020, 08:57 AM

May 2020

{snip}

Commenting on the preamble’s assertion that the government’s “action will result in reductions in climate change-related impacts and most air pollutants compared to the absence of regulation,” EPA staffers wrote in an internal document in February that “this is not correct” from the agency’s perspective.

“The action revising the [greenhouse gas] standards will result in increased climate impacts and air pollution emissions compared to the existing standards,” agency staff wrote in the margins.

In a Jan. 30 presentation to the head of the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, according to a document obtained by The Post, staffers stated that the rule submitted to the White House Office of Management and Budget did not reflect their work.

It noted that the EPA had not seen about two-thirds of the 1,000-page document that Transportation Department staffers had submitted to the White House to justify the change in the mileage standards.

Four days before the rule was signed by Wheeler, the top EPA official in charge of setting fuel economy standards wrote an email saying Transportation Department officials had not addressed more than 250 comments by EPA experts.

{snip}

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